Today, Ohio Governor John Kasich will formally announce his entry into the 2016 GOP race for the White House.

Earlier this month, I saw Kasich take center seat on FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier. For someone who spent a good part of a decade on TV at FNC, he looked awkward and ill at ease. Kasich was also on the defensive, especially when Jonah Goldberg asked him about the expansion of Medicaid under the auspices of Obamacare. He made a rather peculiar explanation that he accepted the money so he wouldn’t have to keep the mentally ill in prison. Kasich then said, “Now, maybe some people want to lock up the mentally ill in prison. Maybe some people want to throw away the drug addicted.” To his credit, Baier interjected, “You’re making a leap from someone opposing Medicaid expansion to that person wanting to jail Medicaid...” but then Kasich cut him off and resumed his demagoguery.

There's a rule in crisis communications that says you should never fully acknowledge, apologize or excuse behavior you've kept secret until you're sure your opponent has revealed everything they have on you. After all, if you configure your response too early, subsequent revelations are likely to undercut your carefully concocted excuses, sending them crashing to the floor, and destroying your credibility.

As of midnight, the Cuban flag now hangs in the State Department to mark the reestablishment of political ties between Cuba and the U.S. As reported by AP and ABC news:

The United States and Cuba restored full diplomatic relations Monday after more than five decades of frosty relations rooted in the Cold War.

The new era began with little fanfare when an agreement between the two nations to resume normal ties on July 20 came into force just after midnight Sunday and the diplomatic missions of each country were upgraded from interests sections to embassies. When clocks struck 12:00 in Washington and Havana, they tolled a knell for policy approaches spawned and hardened over the five decades since President John F. Kennedy first tangled with youthful revolutionary Fidel Castro over Soviet expansion in the Americas.

Progressives cheered Hillary Clinton last week when she said policy makers need to “go beyond Dodd-Frank.” She didn’t rule out repeal of some sections, but most took it to mean preserve virtually all of the law—which turns five on July 21—plus expand government intervention further into banking.

But that praise was short-lived when Clinton’s economic adviser Alan Blinder told Reuters, “You’re not going to see Glass-Steagall” reinstated in her administration. The New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act separated commercial and investment banking until it was partially repealed by the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act, which passed Congress overwhelmingly in 1999 and was signed into law by Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton.

In the wake of last week’s shooting at two separate military facilities in Chattanooga that claimed the lives of four Marines and one Navy sailor, GOP presidential candidates Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have called for greater scrutiny on people entering America from Muslim countries.

During an interview with Breitbart News last week following a campaign rally in Houston, Paul stated, “I’m for increasing scrutiny on people who come on student visas from the 25 countries that have significant jihadism. Also, any kind of permanent visas or green cards, we need to be very careful. I don’t think we’re being careful enough with who we let in."

Paul went on to say that he would see if Congress would reinstate NSEERS (National Security Entry Exit Registration System), which was in place during the Bush administration. It required males over the age of 16 from designated Muslim countries either entering or residing in the United States to be subject to being photographed, fingerprinted, and interrogated by the INS.

While the left was eating its own at Netroots Nation in a three-way war for attention, Hillary Clinton was sitting out the annual gathering of progressive agitators in favor of a relaxing weekend, recording videos about beer koozies.

You can apparently be the "coolest" (har!) person at the party with your Chillary canteen. Because nothing says "I'm really with it!" like your overt support for a septugenarian retread candidate from the mid-1990s.

Even though his sudden uptick in the polls had me a little queasy, there was something inherently valuable about a Donald Trump candidacy: he made all of the other fourteen (fifteen?) candidates look sane and normal by comparison. I can't say with any honesty, like Jeffery Lord, that Trump was "speaking truth to power" with his bizarre, rambling speeches, but I can say that, for a campaign that has now started almost two years out, he's a brief, if challenging bit of entertainment.

Donald J. Trump has made his name in politics with provocative statements, but it was not until Saturday, after the flamboyant businessman turned presidential candidate belittled Senator John McCain’s war record, that many Republicans concluded that silence or equivocation about Mr. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric was inadequate.

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